The airline has been tweeting out pictures of in-flight celebrations all through. (Source: Bryan Fogg/Twitter)

After a wonderful performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the British contingent is on its way back to London with its best medal tally ever. No. 2 on the overall medals chart with 67 Olympic medals, Great Britain is just behind the US, which finished with 121 medals in all.

To celebrate the effort and wins of their athletes, British Airways – the official supplier to Team GB and ParalympicsGB this summer – decided to fly over 1,500 athletes and support staff home to London in a special British Airways 747, which has been repainted with a gold nose and renamed ‘victoRIOus’.

British Airways has been tweeting about the journey with the hashtag #greattobeBAck

At the time of writing, flight number BA2016, aka VictoRIOus, was almost nearing London’s Heathrow Airport, with the celebrations already on in full swing mid-flight. Creating much buzz around this special flight, British Airways has been regularly updating tweeple with photos and the live flight plan, so that everyone can track when the beloved athletes touchdown in London.

This year, Britain is going back with 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals. The airlines had announced this special flight a week back in a tweet, with photos of the gold-nosed aircraft. It even has a special Web page with updates on the flight. These celebrations are just the beginning of many. According to reports, there will be a victory parade in Manchester and another celebratory event in London later. British PM Theresa May’s spokesperson has announced that there will be no cap on the “number of honours that might be distributed, given the ‘special circumstances’ of the Rio triumph”, says a Guardian report.

People have been following the flight path of BA2016 keenly. (Source: hrisdj1664/Twitter)

So, will we be seeing many more sirs and dames very soon? Quite possibly.